Quotes About Combat

Serpent-Breath was in my hand and anger in my soul.

Cnut Longsword had near killed me with his blade Ice-Spite and it was small consolation that Serpent-Breath had sliced his throat in the same heartbeat that his sword had broken a rib and pierced my lung.

Do you know who wins battles, boy?" "We do, Father." "The side that is least drunk," he said, and then, after a pause, "but it helps to be drunk." "Why?" "Because a shield wall is an awful place." He gazed into the fire. "I have been in six shield walls," he went on, "and prayed every time it would be the last.

No man wanted to face warriors like Finan in battle.

And then I had ridden from the east in the glory of a warrior, which is what I am and always have been. All my life I have followed the path of the sword. Given a choice, and I have been given many choices, I would rather draw a blade than settle an argument with words, for that is what a warrior does, but most men and women are not fighters.

Derfel] La mia spada era coperta di sangue, avevo la mano destra appiccicosa e la manica della cotta tutta macchiata, ma nemmeno una goccia di quel sangue era mia.

no one survives long by assuming his enemy is sleeping.

Fighting fair! Whoever heard of anything so daft? Fight fair and you lose.

I could hardly see him in the darkness, but knew he wore a leather jerkin and had a sword at his side. The rest of us were in leather and mail, had helmets, and carried shields, axes, swords, or spears. Tonight we would kill. Sihtric

I kicked back my heels, but all I achieved was to ride out of the panicked mass into the path of the Danes, and all around me men were screaming and the Danish axes and swords were chopping and swinging. The grim work, the blood feast, the song of the blade, they call it.

You spent it on oil for your hair,' I said, 'and on baubles for your whores, on furs and on horses, on jewels and on silk. A man, Lord Eardwulf, dresses in leather and iron. And he fights.

Have you ever fought in a battle? I know you burned down my barns, but that isn't a battle, you stinking piece of rat-gristle. A battle is the shield wall. It's smelling your enemy's breath while he tries to disembowel you with an ax, it's blood and shit and screams and pain and terror. It's trampling in your friends' guts as enemies butcher them. It's men clenching their teeth so hard they shatter them. Have you ever been in a battle?

Soldiers were not paragons; they were scarred, vicious men who took delight in destruction.

Confusion is inevitable in battle, but indecision is unforgivable.

Uhtred of Steapa - He might be dumb as a parsnip but he knows how to fight.

The men with leather or mail mostly possessed helmets and had proper weapons, swords or spears, while the rest were armed with axes, adzes, sickles, or sharpened hoes. Eadred grandly called it the Army of the Holy Man, but if I had been the holy man I would have bolted back to heaven and waited for something better to come along.

Step forward again, hold the shield steady. Peer over the top. Fear is screaming somewhere deep. Ignore it. You can smell the shit now. Shit and blood, the stench of glory. The enemy is more frightened. Kill them. Keep the shields steady. Kill.

You do not swing in a shield wall, you stab. May the gods ever send me enemies who swing their blades.

Je n'ai jamais compris comment les guerres pouvaient faire tant de morts quand les chocs frontaux y sont finalement si rares. Je n'ai jamais plus admiré un récit de guerre qu'Hommage à la Catalogne de George Orwell parce qu'il raconte, justement, cette loi de l'attente et de la patience qui est la loi no 1 des combattants. (ch. 12 Les mots de la guerre)

Chez les Tigres noirs du Sri Lanka on entrainait les femmes combatantes qui n'étaient pas vierges à passer une journée avec une grenade dans le vagin. (ch. 2)

I like Cung. He's a good guy and a good martial artist. He doesn't sell a fight very well, but he looks great and he fights hard. He definitely fills two very important requirements for building a fight.

In 2001, I was an Air Force lieutenant colonel and A-10 fighter pilot stationed in Saudi Arabia, in charge of rescue operations for no-fly enforcement in Iraq and then in Afghanistan.

I love fighting. I don't know what it is in me, whether it's a sickness or a gene, but I just love standing in front of another fighter and going for it: they can hurt me, and I can hurt them.

If the money's right, I'm happy to bust up the other side of his face... No problem.